The paper presents a new approach to solving a class of combinatorial economic allocation problems. One member of this class is known as the quadratic assignment problem. Besides presenting an algorithm to solve this problem, we will discuss in general terms the techniques for treating combinatorial problems. A novel feature of the paper is the development of the statistical properties of the criterion function. These statistical properties are used in conjunction with a general enumerative procedure to form the main parts of the algorithm. Using the idea of confidence level enumeration, an extension of the algorithm is proposed which should allow for the effective treatment of large scale combinatorial problems. Finally we present some computational results in order to illustrate the effectiveness of the general approach.